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Sunday, 5 February 2017

Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor

Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor is a sequel novella to Binti, which I reviewed here and which went on to win both the Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novella. The sequel follows on from the original story, showing us the next chapter of Binti's life, and focussing on a very different set of experiences. This review will contain some spoilers for the first novella.

The thrilling sequel to the Nebula-nominated Binti.

It’s been a year since Binti and Okwu enrolled at Oomza University. A year since Binti was declared a hero for uniting two warring planets. A year since she left her family to pursue her dream.

And now she must return home to her people, with her friend Okwu by her side, to face her family and face her elders.

But Okwu will be the first of his race to set foot on Earth in over a hundred years, and the first ever to come in peace.

After generations of conflict can human and Meduse ever learn to truly live in harmony?

The first Binti novella followed Binti on her eventful and ultimately traumatic journey from her home on Earth to the prestigious Oomza University. Binti: Home opens on Oomza University and follows Binti as she makes the decision to go home for a visit. Rather than focussing on the journey this time, the story focusses on what happens after Binti gets home.

The novella deals a lot with change and belonging. Binti was changed by her time at Oomza, from learning new things and living in a different environment with a diverse assortment of people. She was also changed, both emotionally and physically, by the events en route to Oomza. How does she then go about fitting in back home? In a culture where no one leaves (usually) the very act of going away and coming back is subversive in itself, but the added changes of the journey are revolutionary. The scenes with Binti's family were the most upsetting, I thought, and although some of their reactions are understandable I, as the reader sympathising with Binti, couldn't help but be outraged at how unfair they were.

If you enjoyed Binti, I definitely recommend reading Binti: Home. It's the next part of Binti's story and, as the ending strongly implied, it's not the last part either. I hope there will be a third story because Binti: Home ended on more of a cliffhanger than I was expecting. I turned the page expecting more story and was met with "About the Author"! I need to know what happens next! Argh! If you haven't read Binti, I recommend picking that up first, since Home builds a lot on what came before. If you're a fan of thoughtful science fiction, I highly recommend this series of novellas.